


10-4

by Duck_Life



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Cooking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Late Night Conversations, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2019-01-09 00:51:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12265542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: When Bill can't stop thinking about the summer and the sewers, Mike's only a two-way radio transmission away.





	10-4

“I'll take him, only him…” It hisses from above him, rancid breath drifting across Bill’s face. “And then I'll take my long rest, and you will grow, will thrive… and be happy.” 

He’s scared, he’s so fucking scared. He keeps thinking,  _ Bevvie lived because she wasn’t afraid, Bevvie’s okay because she wasn’t afraid _ , but he can’t be like her. He can’t be unafraid, he’s drenched with fear. And he’s going to die for it ( _ dead like Georgie, dead like Georgie, all your fault.) _

It chokes out a cruel laugh. “Until old age takes you back to the weeds…” 

It’s his fault Georgie died, he knows it is, but it doesn’t have to be his fault any of the rest of them die. Bill cranes his neck painfully, trying to get a glimpse of his friends. “Leave,” he says, even though he wants them to stay, even though he wants them all to clump around him like they did Stan moments ago, wants them to hug him and tell him it’s all going to be alright and make him feel safe in the way his parents haven’t been able to since Georgie died. “I’m the one who got us all into this,” Bill says. “I’m sorry.”

Bev and Richie share a look and then they look at Stan and nod, and then Mike and Ben get up and start moving away. Eddie spares him one last pitying look and then walks away with the rest of them. 

“Bye, Bill,” Bev says, sounding as if she’s speaking through a long tunnel. 

That’s good, that’s good, they’re safe ( _ They left you _ ) and they’ll all grow up safe and sound ( _ they left you _ ) and soon he’ll be gone, gone like Georgie ( _ dead like Georgie _ ). The sound of his friends’ footsteps fade away.

He feels teeth sink down into the space where his neck meets his shoulder…

* * *

 

Bill jerks awake, sweat clinging to his forehead and tears flooding his eyes. He’s home, and he’s safe, and all that stuff in the sewer is months behind him. His clammy fingers grip the bed sheets to ground himself. 

_ Just a nightmare _ , he tells himself, but his climbing heart rate doesn’t want to listen. Absurdly, Bill thinks about getting up and climbing into his parents’ bed the way he did when he was younger and had bad dreams, but he can’t imagine it would be any help.

He would just lie there in the cold chasm between his mom and dad, cold and white like the blank space on the couch where Georgie used to sit. He would lie there and maybe he would start to cry, and they would have nothing to say to him. 

Still scared, leftover fear roiling in his gut, Bill clambers for the walkie talkie resting on his nightstand. He presses down the talk button, holding onto the device like it’s a talisman. When they found Georgie’s coat in the sewers, they found Bill’s other walkie talkie with it. 

That got bequeathed to Mike, because he lived farthest away. Bill could easily enough walk to everyone else’s house, but if he wanted Mike, it was easier to reach out with the radio set. 

“Bravo Delta to Mike Hotel, over,” he says, gripping the handheld radio a little too tightly. That was one of the things they did over that long, hellish summer, they all learned the NATO phonetic alphabet. (Of course, Mike was still Mike.) They learned Morse code too but generally agreed it was too much trouble to deal with. “Mike?”

Finally, his handheld crackles to life. “Mike Hotel here,” Mike says, sounding tinny through the radio but alert and awake. Lucky for Bill, Mike stays up reading Greatest Illustrated Classics by flashlight. “What’s going on? Uh, over.”

Bill presses the talk button and almost says, “Nothing,” but then stops, thumb dropping from the talk button. He pushes it in again and admits, “B-b-ba-ad dream.” It’s like he can picture Mike sitting up in his bed, moonlight lancing in through the window. “Over.”

“You wanna talk about it?” Mike says. “My grandma says talking about bad dreams makes them feel… not so bad, I guess. Over.” 

Bill doesn’t say anything. 

The walkie crackles to life again. “Bill? What was it about? Over.”

Bill holds the walkie so close to his face the antenna pokes him in the cheek. “Y-y-you know wha-what it was ab-b-bout, Mikey.” A sob he wasn’t expecting wrenches its way out of his chest. “Over.”

He can imagine Mike, across town, shaking his head and letting out a whistling sigh. When you know someone as well as they got to know each other over the course of the summer, you can see them even if they aren’t there. Bill wonders if he’ll still be able to see Mike in his mind’s eye like this, years and years down the road after they’re all grown up. He wonders if he’ll still be able to picture Mike so clearly or if 

( _ they’ll all forget _ )

he’ll just grow up and away and Mike will fade into the fog of childhood. 

“Yeah,” Mike sighs, sounding forty years older. “Yeah, I know what it was about.” He sighs over the static of the walkies. “Bill, I think I’m gonna come over tomorrow. Is that okay? Over.” 

And Bill thinks about that. Mike, needing to comfort him, when it’s supposed to be the other way around. Wasn’t it the other way around all summer? Wasn’t it? It gets fuzzier every day, but Bill was sure that he was the strong one, the level-headed one. He shouldn’t need Mike to come over and baby him, take care of him, hug him and smile at him and tell him everything’s going to be okay…

Except that Bill suddenly gets a vivid mental picture of that, just as clear as how he can picture Mike right now, leaning up on his elbow in bed with worried lines carved into his forehead. Bill, suddenly, imagines how nice it would be to have someone  _ worry _ about him, worry  _ over _ him, especially someone as sunny and spirited and  _ good _ as Mike. 

Mike’s the kind of guy who would pick you up when you fell down, hug you tight, and, speaking over your shoulder, calmly tell whoever it was pushed you over that they’d better think twice before trying it again. 

Mike’s the kind of guy who would pick up a walkie talkie in the middle of the night just to calm down a friend. 

“Yeah,” he hears himself saying, thumb mashing the talk button. “Yeah, come over tomorrow… i-i-hif you want. Over.”

“I’ll be there, Big Bill,” Mike says, and Bill can already feel his thrumming pulse sinking back to its normal pace, can feel sleep tugging gently on his eyelids. His nightmare starts to fade. 

He falls back asleep with the walkie still clutched in one hand.

* * *

 

The next day, Bill answers a knock on his front door to find Mike standing outside with his bike, the basket piled with potatoes and one glass jug half-full of milk. He’s smiling. “Thought I’d make you some mashed potatoes,” he says. “Best comfort food in the world. Only… you think your mom has butter around?”

“Sure she does,” Bill says, feeling his chest fill up with something warm, sort of like when you come inside from playing in the snow and suck down a big cup of hot chocolate. “C-come on in.” Mike collects the potatoes and milk in his arms and leans his bike against the vinyl siding before following Bill inside. 

In the Denbrough kitchen, Mike boils water while Bill hunts for the potato peeler. They get to work peeling the potatoes, passing the single peeler back and forth. At one point, Bill nicks the side of his pointer finger on the blade and a bead of blood bubbles up. 

He stands frozen, caught in memories of the Coke bottle sliver cutting across his palm and the promise and the circle and

( _ the deadlights _ )

Mike grabs a paper towel and holds it against Bill’s finger. “You gotta be more careful, Big Bill,” he says as the water in the pot starts bubbling. “You realize how messed up it would be if we survived everything we survived only for you to die in a tragic potato peeling accident?”

“S-sorry,” Bill says, ducking his head.

Mike’s eyes soften. “Not your fault,” he shrugs, taking the peeler from Bill and grabbing another potato. “Just be more careful.”

With the potatoes cooking in the pot, Bill turns to Mike while they’re leaning against the counter. “You l-l-left me,” he says, not able to look at his friend’s eyes. “I mean, in my dream. In the sewers. Whe-when It said to juh-hust leave me, and I suh-said so too. You did, you all d-did.” He swallows. “That was my dr-dream.”

He thinks for a second Mike is going to say something, is going to assure him that his dream was just a dream and of  _ course _ they’d never leave him, is going to tell him that everything’s going to be okay. 

Instead, he suddenly finds himself bundled into Mike’s arms, and then Bill clings to him like Mike’s a liferaft. And it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay. They didn’t leave him behind,  _ Mike _ didn’t leave him behind, of course not, because here he is and here they are and it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay. 

The pot of potatoes boils over and Mike turns around quickly to turn down the heat, poking one potato with a spoon. “Almost soft enough,” he says. “Got the butter?”

“Yeah,” Bill says, holding out a stick of it. Mike takes it and Bill can’t help but notice that the house finally feels warm again. 


End file.
